The Hindu Editorial Analysis
5 June 2025
Exposomics for Better Environmental Health
(Source – The Hindu, National Edition – Page No. – 08)
Topic: GS 3: Environment and Health | Science & Technology | Environmental Pollution | Disease Burden and Public Health Systems
Context
- World Environment Day 2025 (June 5) focused on ending plastic pollution, highlighting a broader concern—micro-exposures to pollutants in air, water, and soil that silently affect human health.
- The editorial emphasizes the emerging science of exposomics, which integrates environmental surveillance and bioinformatics to map cumulative environmental exposures across a lifetime.
Introduction
From air to plastic, the environment is leaving its fingerprints on our health.
While we’ve long studied the causes of disease through genetics and lifestyle, a new approach—exposomics—helps us understand how environmental factors interact cumulatively to influence health outcomes.
Understanding Exposomics
1. What Is Exposomics?
- It is the study of all environmental exposures (chemical, physical, biological) an individual experiences across their lifespan.
- Inspired by genomics, exposomics aims to map the external exposome (pollution, diet, chemicals) and internal response systems (metabolic, hormonal, immune) using AI, omics, and sensor-based tools.
2. Need for Exposomics in India
- India contributes to 25% of the global environmental disease burden, yet current frameworks (GBD, WHO) are not integrated with dynamic risk exposure tracking.
- Environmental risks are often studied in isolation, while real-world exposures occur as complex mixtures over time.
Environmental Disease Burden in India
- Over 100 million Indians are affected by occupational and environmental risks.
- Outdoor air pollution and household pollution (solid fuels, poor ventilation) account for 6.3% of India’s DALYs.
- India’s ODHI risk burden from chronic diseases like heart failure, COPD, asthma, and cancer is 50% higher than global averages.
Why Exposomics Is Revolutionary
1. It Accounts for Real-World Complexity
- Traditional models fail to capture synergistic interactions like air pollution + stress + poor nutrition.
- Exposomics links environmental triggers to chronic conditions like diabetes, mental illness, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer.
2. It Bridges Gaps in Public Health Surveillance
- Combines wearable sensors, remote sensing, big data platforms, and bio-monitoring to build predictive models for health policy.
- Helps move from disease cure to proactive prevention.
Climate Change, Health, and the Exposome
- Climate change worsens exposures: heat waves, air pollution, infectious diseases, food insecurity.
- Exposomics helps trace how multiple exposures interact over time, particularly in low-resource populations.
Policy and Research Imperatives
1. India’s Policy Shift Needed
- Current efforts like the GBD India Project and National Environmental Health Programmes must be scaled with exposomics data layers.
- Government must invest in integrated environmental-health dashboards and public awareness tools.
2. Multidisciplinary Collaboration
- Collaboration across public health, urban planning, genomics, climate science, and IT is vital.
- India’s Aarogya Setu model for COVID-19 could inspire an Exposome Tracking Network for chronic disease forecasting.
Conclusion
- Exposomics is not just a science—it’s a public health revolution in waiting.
- In an era where pollution and climate are redefining disease, understanding lifetime exposures is key to building resilient and preventive health systems.
- India’s commitment to the World Environment Day 2025 theme can be deepened by investing in exposome science—to not just save the environment, but also the health of those living in it.